Spectrum of hospital-acquired acute renal failure in the developing countries--Chandigarh study

The spectrum of hospital-acquired acute renal failure in the developing countries has not been documented. We undertook a prospective study to define the causes and outcome of hospital acquired acute renal failure as seen at a referral center in North India. Over a one year period, all patients who developed acute elevation in serum creatinine during the hospital stay were studied. One hundred and ninety of 29,503 admitted patients (0.64 per cent) satisfied the criteria for entering into the study. Nephrotoxic drugs (29 per cent), decreased renal perfusion (21 per cent), major surgery (18 per cent) and septicaemia (17 per cent) were the most frequent causes. Acute renal failure was non-oliguric in 52 per cent of patients. Non-oliguric patients had significantly fewer episodes of hyperkalaemia, neurological abnormalities, metabolic acidosis and gastrointestinal bleeding. They required fewer episodes of dialysis (p < 0.001) and had a significantly lower mortality (p < 0.001) compared to the oliguric patients. Other poor prognostic factors included severity of renal insufficiency, high baseline serum creatinine and presence of multiorgan failure. The present study shows that the spectrum of hospital-acquired acute renal failure in the developing countries is quite similar to that of technologically advanced countries, although the pattern of community acquired acute renal failure is vastly different.